Jerry Moses (#104)

Jerry Moses was a catcher for the Red Sox and several other teams. Since our “Hangin’ at the Bat Rack” team already has a catcher, and the DH is still 3 years off, let’s just say he is batting for the pitcher.

Moses was signed by Boston in 1964, and played in the minors for five seasons, while also playing 4 games with the Sox early in 1965, and 6 games in September 1968.

In 1969, Russ Gibson was the Sox’ #1 catcher. Moses started 6 straight games in mid-April, but when Boston acquired catcher Joe Azcue from the Indians on 4/19, Moses was relegated to 3rd-string catcher for the remainder of the season, even after Azcue was swapped to the Angels on 6/15 for C-3B Tom Satriano.

In 1970, Gibson was sold to the Giants 3 days before opening day, paving the way for Jerry to be the #1 catcher. He started 85 of the first 127 games (with Satriano catching the others), and made the AL all-star team. However, he did not play after August 28th.

After the 1970 season, Moses was included in the trade that sent outfielder Tony Conigliaro and pitcher Ray Jarvis to the Angels for 2nd baseman Doug Griffin, pitcher Ken Tatum, and outfielder Jarvis Tatum. (recap: that’s 1 guy named Jarvis, 1 guy named Tatum, and 1 guy named Jarvis Tatum.)

Moses played for 6 teams (Angels, Indians, Yankees, Tigers, Padres, White Sox) in the next 5 seasons, all as a backup. In his final season (1975) he only played in 15 games, the last coming on August 9th.

He was released by the White Sox on 9/11/1975.